There’s something about lakeshore towns. Maybe it’s the fog that rolls in without warning or the way sound carries over still water. Maybe it’s the long memories of the people who live here. Whatever it is, Whiskey Pines has more than its share of legends, and most of them start at the docks.

When I was a girl, I used to sit on the weathered bench near the bait shop, legs swinging, trying to listen in on the old men who drank coffee from mismatched thermoses and traded stories like baseball cards. They talked about ships that vanished, lights that hovered over the lake at night, and a fisherman who walked out onto the ice one January and never came back, though his boots did, lined up neatly on the shore come spring.

Of course, back then, I thought they were just passing the time. Filling silences with fish tales and wind-blown nonsense. Now? I’m not so sure.

Since moving back, I’ve started hearing those stories again. Not from the old timers, but from the people who swear they’ve seen things. A girl jogging at dawn who says she heard music coming from the fog. A couple walking their dog who noticed ripples in the water—but the lake was flat calm. Even Ethan mentioned once, in his understated way, that some mornings the ducks won’t go near the far end of the pier. And Ethan is not a man prone to superstition.

There’s one tale that always stuck with me. My grandmother Roxanne used to tell it in a whisper, as if saying it too loud might call it back. It was about the bell that rang where there is no bell. Supposedly, when danger was coming to town, or when someone was about to uncover a secret best left buried, a single bell toll would echo out over the lake. No one could say where it came from, and no one ever saw a bell tower. But those who heard it never forgot the sound.

I used to roll my eyes at that one. Now? Well, let’s just say I heard something last Tuesday that stopped me cold. It might have been a boat anchor. Might have been a loon. But I froze halfway through my walk, and even Kenzie stopped mid-sniff and growled.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was everything.

The lake holds its secrets tight. Bodies of water are good at that—better than people. And here in Whiskey Pines, we’ve got more beneath the surface than algae and old fishing lines. We have history, and heartache, and stories that still haven’t settled.

So if you walk the docks in the early hours, keep your ears open. Don’t ignore the shiver down your spine. And if you hear a bell where there shouldn’t be one, well… maybe take the long way home.

With just a hint of suspicion, Roxie Maxx

Local skeptic. Reluctant believer.